Arlington National Cemetary




Pentagon City Mall

Embassy Row


Me and the boss man

As they say though all good things must come to an end and before you know it it’s time to go home, much like I said in my last report on New York, Washington is an amazing city and in many ways I’d rate it above NYC but they are both awesome cities although I can say this had more of a lasting effect on me and it’s somewhere I’d be quite happy living someday

Anyway another taxi back to Regan and it was time to go home, after arrival at the airport we had a bit of a wonder around and getting something to eat. It’s a nice modern airport to be at and with such great views of the ramp it’s not too hard to get bored, check in again was quick and efficient and we departing the same gate area we arrived in.

We also got talking to a pilot (as you do) telling us about his training etc, the gate area is comftable but with only a newstand or so to provide food/drink it can also get a bit boring bar looking outside at the ramp. For the first leg home and our flight to Minneapolis we would be getting a NWA B752 and sure enough N526US pulled upto the gate, it’s one of the older 757s flying today being in the air being as old as me at 22 years old!

The comfort wasn’t bad though and was certainly more enjoyable than the Airbus we’d took to get here, once again a full flight and an evening departure prevented me getting much in the way of photos for the final two legs of the journey but I’ll show what I can, departure from DCA was on RWY1 and gave some stunning overviews of the city as can be seen!

This flight was over twice the length of the last so we settled in for the flight once again being served with drinks and food, bad weather was once again hovering over our arrival and so there’s no pictures of the landing or the departure from MSP and it was a late night departure.

The terminal we arrived and departed from at MSP was very smart and busy, an excess of shops and places to eat ensured you didn’t get bored, waiting at our gate we noticed that next to us one of NWA’s B742s was awaiting with US Soldiers boarding presumably to head over to Europe and ultimately the on-going conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Boarding time came and NWA A332 (N861NW) was sitting at the gate ready to take us back to London and unlike New York the opportunity didn’t come to get into the flight deck and have a chat with the flight-crew so sorry no night time pictures from up front this time.

The A330 was once again PTV equipped and the 2-3-2 seating arrangement makes it ideal for people travelling in two’s etc, the seats were somewhat annoying though because regardless of what postion you moved them too putting pressure by sitting in them still made the seats go back a further inch or two and do the reverse if you got up making it slightly irratating for yourself or anyone behind you.

Once again luck was not on our side with the PTVs, this time affecting the whole a/c because it was June 1st and a new month they’d changed the IFE but not the inflight magazines or the screens themselves! so nothing on the menus or magazines related to what you were selecting i.e – selecting one movie would end up playing another and unless you skipped through to halfway or didn’t mind what you were watching it was irratating. As the pilot said thought we’d unfortunately chosen to fly in this limbo point where only one of the 3 components had been changed :(.

Not being the end of the world although it did render many parts of the IFE useless, a bumpy departure from MSP once again provided some light entertainment. As Ben had the window seat for the second half of the flight and ultimately the landing in Heathrow there isn’t much in the way of pictures from me at least but it was an enjoyable flight and after a 30 minute hold at Heathrow we were finally given clearance to land on 9L once again in some favourable weather for a change!

Back home and although having only spent a few days there Washington did have a big effect on me and I look foreward to the day I can go back! Now all that’s left to choose is where to go for 2010/2011! Roadtrip? 😀

The picture quality isn’t amazing and some maybe blurry but they’ve literally just been took from the camera/resized with a very quick edit but these are best for the use of this report. I hope you enjoyed reading and apologies that it took so long!

Tom 🙂